The levels of noise and speech signals propagating through an in-service transmission path are used to determine the quality of the path. For example, the transmission quality of a path may be questionable if the level of the noise signals is high, or if the level of the speech signals is low (weak). It can be appreciated, therefore, that an accurate determination of the quality of a transmission path requires an accurate measurement of the levels of noise and speech signals as they propagate through the transmission path.
Prior measuring arrangements have been unable to achieve such accuracy, since they do not measure accurately the level of noise signals present in a transmission path. For example, one such prior measuring arrangement performs multiple measurements over respective 30 millisecond windows when noise signals are believed to be present on the transmission path. Noise signals are present when the levels of signals on the path fall below a predetermined threshold. At that point, the prior arrangement measures the levels of all signals that are present on the transmission path within the 30 millisecond window. The arrangement then determines an average noise value for the window. When the prior measuring arrangement has completed a number of such measurements it then outputs, as the noise level of the transmission path, the average having the lowest value.